New York City Real Estate

DALLAS-There’s a new student housing firm on the hunt for development and acquisition investment opportunities.

The newly created company, Fountain Residential Partners, was formed by Brent Little, Jonathan Clayton and Trevor Tollett. Together, the principals of Fountain Residential have a combined experience of over 40 years in the student housing industry, having completed in excess of $1 billion worth of student housing developments for JPI, Place Properties and others.

“Student housing has such a great story,” Little says. “When you look at all the major food groups of commercial real estate, multifamily is the strongest, and when you look within multifamily, student housing is performing better than all the rest because more and more parents and students want the living experience to be commensurate with the education experience. As a result, universities are playing catch up.”

Fountain Residential has received a capital infusion for its start-up and ongoing operations from Commodore Student Housing LLC. Commodore Student Housing, a newly established entity and a subsidiary of Carl Westcott LLC, a family office specializing in venture capital and private equity investments in various industries such as real estate, communications, internet-based ventures and retail services.

Commodore Student Housing will provide Fountain Residential with a mix of equity and a long-term line of credit. Court Westcott and long-time Westcott family associate Jack T. Smith advised Commodore regarding this investment and will continue to be integrally involved with Fountain Residential into the future.

“Commodore Student Housing is funding the operating company, and we will be looking for debt and equity to fund Fountain Residential’s individual investments,” Little says. He tells GlobeSt.com that Fountain Residential primarily will focus its investment efforts on development projects.

“We’re putting together some development opportunities – we already have two deals under contract,” Little notes, adding that the firm plans to finance the projects with funds raised from private investors including family offices and high-net worth individuals rather than institutional money. “We’d like to start two to three projects this year and then develop an average of four projects annually.”

Little says Fountain Residential is searching for investment opportunities across the nation, but is focused exclusively on projects that can receive GSE funding – those that are located within two-miles of a college campus with at least 8,000 full-time students. The firm plans to use third-party vendors for general contracting and property management.